Rare Blue Firefly Species Found in The State of Georgia!

Did you know that Georgia is home to an extremely rare firefly species!

Blue Ghost Fireflies can only be found in three places Asheville, North Carolina, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and in the Cohutta Mountains of North Georgia.

These fireflies only emerge about two to four weeks each year in late May to early June.

Unlike other fireflies who only flash for about a second, Blue Ghost Fireflies can be seen glowing and hovering in the sky for about a minute each time.

So why are they called Blue Ghost Fireflies? Legend has it that the fireflies are the ghosts of Confederate soldiers as a lot of soldiers lost their lives in the areas where you see these fireflies. If you look closely enough to the fireflies it looks like they have lanterns and are carrying them as they are floating through the sky.

The males are the only ones who can fly and are the ones that you see floating through the air and glowing their blueish-white light. The females do not fly as they never change from their wingless larval stage even after reaching adulthood. Instead, the females crawl up on leaves and other foliage and sit and glow to help the males find them.

If you get a chance in the coming days and weeks to see these beautiful creatures before they end their beautiful show for the year, I would highly recommend it to anyone!

My favorite place to view them is the Cohutta Overlook in the Fort Mountain State Park parking lot. They appear right at dusk and stay around for a while.